With the development of recent computer graphic technique, image processors such as game devices or simulation devices have been commonly and widely popularized. For example, the game devices include peripherals (peripheral equipments) such as a joy stick (an operating rod), a button, a monitor, etc., and a game device main body for executing a data communication with the peripherals, an image processing, an acoustic processing and the like. Since the image processing plays an extremely important role to improve the value of goods, a technique for reproducing animated images also has been recently improved to obtain a high definition.
As an example of the game devices, “Title Fight (trade mark) produced by Sega Enterprises Co. Ltd.” has been known. In this game device, a character (fighter) is constituted of a sprite (a picture) and a background or the like is constituted of a scroll image plane.
However, in the case of the above mentioned example, the image plane of a character or the like cannot be represented by changing a viewpoint. Thus, recently, a three-dimensional form has been composed of a plurality of polygons and a texture (pattern) has been mapped on the polygons so that the character can be displayed even when it is viewed from a predetermined viewpoint.
As an example of the devices as mentioned above, there has been known a TV game device (For example, a fighting game of “Virtual Fighter (™)” produced by Sega Enterprises Co., Ltd.) in which a picture is drawn using polygon data obtained by applying a texture mapping process to a three-dimensional character, a special background part which requires a movement meeting the movement of the character or the change of a viewpoint is also drawn using polygon data with a texture and a background except the above described background is drawn by a scroll image plane. In this case, the coordinate transformation and perspective transformation of the polygon data with texture which forms the character and a special part of its background are carried out depending on the movement of the character or the change of a viewpoint and a picture is drawn for every frame.
Thus, the character (for example, the above described fighter) and a special part of the image plane of the background (for example, a ring for the above described fighter) closely connected with the movement of the character can be more three-dimensionally represented when viewed from a predetermined viewpoint than a case in which the character is constituted of a sprite or a scroll image plane.
In the image processor such as the above mentioned conventional TV game device, the coordinate transformation for every frame following the movement of the character or the change of a point of view and the throughput of texture mapped data have been enormously increased. Accordingly, the computing load of the CPU of a data processor main body such as a TV game device main body has been extremely increased. In order to cope with the increase of the computing load, a CPU having a high computing capacity has been required, which has caused a production cost to be raised.
Thus, when a CPU having a tolerable processing capability is used and image data is to be processed at rather high speed,for example, the number of characters or the amount of processing of texture mapping needs to be limited. Therefore, the degree of freedom of manufacturing software is suppressed and it becomes difficult to improve an image quality.
Further, since the degree of freedom in manufacturing has been suppressed, the amusement of a game has been inconveniently and insufficiently expressed.
As a result, in the conventional game device using a polygon, it has been attempted to limit the number of polygons which can be used when an image processing program is created, while using a CPU having a tolerable capacity in order to solve the above mentioned problems. In the conventional example, it has been taken into consideration that more polygons are allocated to a part of a display member composed of polygons, for example, a desired part such as an entire character or the head of the character and the number of polygons of other parts is limited so as to effectively employ the number of polygons. However, according to the conventional technique, since the number of polygons of a part to which more polygons are allocated has been maintained as they are in all image processes, it has been impossible to always effectively employ the number of polygons.
Further, according to the conventional game device, since an operating mechanism is actuated so that the movement of a fighter is controlled, it is sometimes decided that a high score is obtained relative to a rival fighter only by frequently and indiscriminately operating the operating mechanism. Consequently, a state different from a real situation has occurred, and therefore a game environment full of a realistic feeling has been hardly provided. On the other hand, if the operation of the operating mechanism is effective, a high score will have to be obtained. However, according to the conventional game device, it has been difficult to discriminate the movement of the operating mechanism to be effective in continuing a game or to be disorderly and indiscriminate.
Still further, in the conventional game device, a plurality of characters are respectively composed of polygons. When the plurality of characters are superimposed together with respect to a viewpoint, a higher priority has been given to a polygon in the front side of the viewpoint so that the polygon in the front side of the viewpoint has been displayed with higher priority than other polygons. As a result, in the case of a fighting game in which a plurality of fighters appear, the back part of a fighter situated in the front side on an image plane has been displayed and other following fighters have not been inconveniently displayed. When the fighter who is a character in the front side is an object to be operated by a player, if the image of an opponent fighter is not displayed, the object to be operated will not be possibly effectively controlled. In this case, although a higher display priority may be given to the polygons of the opponent character, no display of the fighter in the front side who is an object to be operated by the player would make the operation of the fighter difficult.
Additionally, according to the conventional game device, the lifetime of the fighter who is a display member has been displayed on a part of a display as a life counter (lifetime measuring means) and presented to the player. Thus, when the life counter indicates a predetermined value or lower, the game in the game device has finished. For example, in the case of the above described Virtual Fighter (™), when one fighting scene is finished and a new fighting scene is opened, a life count value having the same amount (length) as that of a former scene has been prepared. That is, when the fighters actually fight together, damage given to the fighters are directly accumulated even when the fighting scene is updated. Therefore, there has been a defect that the state of the actual fighting is not accurately reflected on the game device.
In other words, the image processor such as the above mentioned conventional game device has a problem that an effective image processing cannot be achieved when an actuality simulated play, for example, a fighting, is conducted.
Accordingly, the present invention was made to solve the problem. It is a first object of the present invention to provide an image processor capable of effectively using the limited number of polygons.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide an image processor in which a realistic feeling is more expressed by considering a fact that, for example, damage or fatigue applied to a fighter is actually accumulated.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide an image processor in which even if a plurality of display members are superimposed together with respect to a viewpoint, when the display members such as a plurality of characters are related together and subjected to an image processing, the display members can be effectively controlled by simultaneously displaying the plurality of display members.
It is a fourth object of the present invention to provide to an image processor in which a discrimination between the indiscriminate and frequent operation of an operating mechanism and the effective operation of an operating mechanism are effectively made, so that a high evaluation based on the disordered operation of the operating mechanism is prevented from being given.
It is also a fifth object of the present invention to provide a game device provided with the image processor attaining these objects.